Information Technology Services

Passwords

UNBC's Password Management

UNBC Password Management system is a Self-Service Tool. This full Self-Service model will allow users to manage their accounts, any time of the day or night, using a recovery email address and Forgotten Password or Forgotten Username functionality.

Who does this effect?

All UNBC Account holders, including Students, Employees and Alumni.

How do I start the process?

You will receive an email, from UNBC, with information to begin the process of setting your account recovery information. Please watch for more information coming to your inbox soon.

Access Password Self-Service

UNBC Password Length Requirements

UNBC passwords are currently required to be at least 10 characters long without any other complexity requirements. This length was chosen as a reasonable minimum to protect accounts against unauthorized access without being so long as to make memorization difficult. At this time passwords will not expire over time for most users. This may change if and when a convenient system to aid in the resetting of forgotten passwords has been implemented.

What makes a good password?

Common advice is that a password should contain a random mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and other symbols. While it’s true that such passwords are very difficult to guess, they are also very difficult to remember. This makes it tempting to do things like reusing a password for multiple sites, or writing it down and taping it to the bottom of your keyboard.

The measure of a password’s strength is in how much randomness (also known as entropy) it contains. Passwords of the sort described above have a great deal of randomness in relatively few characters. However, there is a measurable amount of randomness even in English (or any language’s) words. This means that it is possible to create strong passwords from easily remembered words as long as the password is long enough. For a UNBC login password, four or five randomly chosen words is sufficient.

Dave Kubert
IT Security Officer, University of Northern BCPreferred:kubert@unbc.caOptimists: 250-960-5651